WASHINGTON, D.C.—Senior citizens with student loan debt traveled from around the country for the second time to tell President Joe Biden to cancel student loan debt for borrowers over 50 years old before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
This group faces significant financial challenges, many delay retirement, neglect health concerns, and can’t pay their bills. Many older Americans feel embarrassed, ashamed and hopeless about their mounting debt. According to the Biden administration, a third of seniors with student loan debt were in default.
Millions of seniors took out student loans to pay for their education as they changed careers. Increasing numbers of parents, especially those who are Black, rely on Parent PLUS loans to finance their children’s college education.
Direct PLUS (Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students) loans, commonly called “Parent PLUS” loans, make up $104 billion of the total federal student debt.
Detroit resident, Becki Wells, attended the December protest at the Department of Education. She has student loan debt at over $230,000 from sending two children to college.
Speaking at the demonstration, Ms. Wells told the crowd, “We hail from Detroit’s inner city. Yet, I successfully raised two responsible, healthy individuals who contribute positively to society and are now productive, tax-paying citizens.”
The protesters believe President Biden can easily cancel this debt before he leaves office. The Federal Claims Collection Standard Act, under Section 902.2, authorizes the Department of Education to forgive loans for elderly borrowers, considering their age and the probability of repaying the debt during their remaining years.
The combined federal and private student loan debt in the United States amounts to $1.75 trillion, spread across approximately 42.8 million federal borrowers and an estimated three million private borrowers. Many voted for President Biden because he pledged at least $10,000 in student debt relief for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year.
The government tried to fulfill this promise, but in June 2023, the Supreme Court stopped the program. Despite this setback, the administration provided student loan debt relief through focused initiatives rather than a broad-based approach. These efforts resulted in nearly $175 billion in debt relief for 4.8 million borrowers.
However, little, if any, of that relief came to seniors. The protesters are all members of the Debt Collective, the first union of debtors in the country. In September, the group protested outside the White House.
They contend that death should not be their only option for debt relief. While in Washington, they also spoke with various congressional representatives and officials from the Department of Education.
Maddie Clifford, creative media strategist for the Debt Collective, has over $120,000 in student debt. She stood in front of a group of senior student loan borrowers and told the crowd in front of the White House, “The fastest growing demographic of student debtors right now are borrowers that are 50 and older.
This issue, the student debt crisis, is affecting people from multiple generations. I’m standing here (in front of the White House) because behind me, we (other protesters) collectively owe over a million dollars in student debt. What have we done? We decided to go to college.”
She continued, “That was our only decision. We decided we wanted a piece of an American dream, and we’re being penalized for it. We’re being punished. These are really important issues because we also know that older debtors have contributed so much to the community.
They are beacons of light in their communities. They have sacrificed to keep their communities afloat, and yet they’re worried about how they’re going to make these student loan payments.
Sometimes they’re $1,000 a month. Sometimes they’re $1,500 a month. There’s no way they can pay them, so sometimes they have to default. Older borrowers, 50 and older are also more likely to default on their student loan payments.”
She explained that for seniors, death is the only comprehensive student debt relief plan. Further, “the federal government doesn’t even need these payments. They know that they won’t be able to collect the debt from these borrowers, and yet they’re still punishing them.
Student loan borrowers represented by the people behind me are also overwhelmingly women, are also disproportionately Black women,” said Ms. Clifford.
A study conducted by the Urban Institute revealed significant racial differences in student loan delinquency rates among older adults. The research showed that older individuals residing in predominantly American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN), Black, or Latino communities were more likely to fall behind on their loan payments.
While the overall delinquency rate in the representative national sample stood at eight percent, it was considerably higher in communities with a majority of AIAN (15 percent), Black (13 percent), and Latino (10 percent) residents.
Fundamental systemic obstacles play a significant role in perpetuating these inequalities. Despite achieving equivalent educational qualifications, people of color often fail to reap the same financial rewards from their academic accomplishments as their White counterparts.
Notably, women from diverse ethnic backgrounds are disproportionately concentrated in positions offering lower wages and inferior working conditions compared to White males with similar educational backgrounds. This pattern results in a compounding disadvantage that persists throughout their lives.
At 52 years old, Tricia Louise Keffer traveled from Niceville, Florida, to Washington, D.C., to participate in the protest. She explained to Truthout and In These Times that she has accumulated $200,000 in student loans from a landscape architecture master’s program that was advertised to only cost $35,000.
She believes President Biden’s refusal to follow through with his campaign promise to cancel debt felt like being “thrown out in the cold, into a freezing iceberg of death. … We don’t know what’s going to happen with the next administration. Am I going to be thrown into a debtors’ prison?”
